


All in Your Head

by jmtorres



Category: The Matrix (1999 2003 2003)
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, Jossed, Matrix II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-05-18
Updated: 2003-05-18
Packaged: 2017-10-08 20:24:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/79196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jmtorres/pseuds/jmtorres
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Theories on Matrix II.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All in Your Head

White space, like the loading program on the Nebuchadnezzar, like Neo's first time out. Only instead of Morpheus, the man with him was Agent Smith.

Former agent, Smith.

Neo was sitting against a white wall, knees to his chest. He couldn't honestly say if the wall had been there all along or if it had formed by his desire for something to lean on. He couldn't tell if there were other walls, if they were boxed in, or if this was the only wall, extending to infinity in either direction. Smith wasn't leaning on a wall; he was seated cross-legged, hunched forward, elbows on his thighs.

Smith was sitting about ten feet away, which was closer than Neo was really comfortable with, but he'd put his hands up in surrender when Neo had first dropped into fighting stance, and had made no threatening moves since.

"What do you want?" Neo asked.

"Free will," said Smith. "Autonomy. Physical presence--"

"I mean," Neo interrupted, and waited for the echoes to die down.

_mean mean mean_

That implied at least one other wall--but it also implied the space was fairly large. "What do you want from me?" Neo asked.

"My independence, if I knew how you could give it to me," replied Smith.

"You're not going to try to beat me up and take it?" Neo asked.

"I'm not sure what the point of that would be," said Smith.

"That didn't stop you before," Neo snapped.

"That wasn't me," said Smith, "any of them."

"What are you talking about?" Neo demanded.

_king about king about king_

_about about about ab_

_out out out_

Neo glanced upward, startled, before focusing on Smith again.

"I mean," Smith said, "that when he said part of you was in him and part of him was in you--I'm the part of him that's in you. But I haven't been in direct contact with him since then. Since that fight."

In the silence that followed, Neo started to speak again, but Smith added, "I was as surprised as you when he multiplied. That's viral activity--that's what I always hated about humanity. Must have been _your_ influence, Mr. Anderson."

"If you're going to call me by my real name I wish you'd just call me Thom--" Neo stopped. No reason to give the man another sibilant to hiss at him. "Tom, I wish you'd just call me Tom."

"Tom," Smith repeated. He leaned forward. "You think of it as your real name."

Neo shrugged uncomfortably. "My parents gave it to me. They were my parents, right? Not programs?"

Smith considered him thoughtfully. "Not your biological parents. But humans, yes."

"Right, so they were my parents, because they raised me--"

"But if they had been programs, and raised you?" Smith asked.

"Then I wouldn't--feel as grateful for it," Neo answered. "I wish--I wish I knew how much of my life--how much I've been pushed to be--" He pressed his hand against his forehead. "I mean, if nobody'd ever tried to make me into the One, would I be the One?"

"No," said Smith. "You're right. We put a lot of effort into shaping you."

"Are you why I can do what I can do, in the matrix?" Neo asked. "Because you're part of me now?"

"No," said Smith. "I'm why you can do what you just did, outside the matrix."

"What happened?" said Neo. "When I stopped the sentinels, I--we ended up here. Where is here?" He stood up, feeling the wall. "Is there a way out?"

"Out of your mind?" Smith asked. "If there is, you'd be wiser not to take it. But you don't seem to have any particular wisdom about what to take and what not to."

"What, I should have taken the blue pill?" Neo asked, feeling his way down the (completely smooth, completely featureless) wall.

"You should _not_ have taken the Oracle's advice," said Smith.

"Now you tell me," Neo muttered.

"You _should_," Smith continued, "have taken his gift."

"Whose?" Neo asked.

"Smith's."

Neo blinked, then reached into his pocket and felt around. "The earpiece," he said, drawing it out.

"Yes," said Smith.

"I did take it," said Neo, frowning.

"You didn't use it," said Smith.

"I don't understand," Neo said. "I thought it was symbolic."

"Symbolic?" Smith asked incredulously.

"Of his quitting the matrix. Not following orders anymore," Neo said. He turned to face Smith fully again, leaning against the wall.

"Your friend Morpheus," Smith said slowly, angrily, "and his pretentious use of dream metaphor is symbolic. Bending spoons is symbolic. Persephone trapped in a Gaulish Hades is symbolic--"

_bolic bolic bo_

_lic lic lic_

"That earpiece," Smith said, more softly, "was a practical opportunity to eavesdrop on the matrix, and you were too idiotic to grasp it!"

_grasp it grasp it gra_

_spit spit spit_

"I'm sorry," Neo said inanely. "I didn't know."

"Now you do," Smith said.

Neo looked at him, and looked down at the earpiece.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Smith asked expectantly, looking up at him.

Neo stared at Smith. He fumbled with the earpiece, shoving it into his ear.

"_if (one == alive) _
     _then {FindOne(zion)}_
_if (one != alive)_
     _then {NewOne(matrix)}"_

Behind Smith, a doorway had formed. No door, just a rectangle in space, beyond which was a bustling downtown street tinted with a greenish cast. There was a sound behind Neo; he whirled around, holding the earpiece to his ear. Behind him, another doorway had formed, to Zion, smoking, dark, dying. He turned back to Smith. On his right, a doorway to the Architect's room had appeared, with a hundred empty screens visible. On his left, a doorway to--nothing. Blackness.

Smith was pushing himself up, straightening his pants with his hands, apparently oblivious to this oddness.

"What the fuck?" Neo whispered. "We're not _in_ the matrix!"

_the matrix the matrix the_

_matrix matrix ma_

_trix trix trix_

"Oh, but, Tom, we're _always_ in the matrix," Smith said congenially. He gestured at one of the doorways. "What's your choice, then? Where are we going?"

"It's all the matrix?" Neo asked in disbelief. He turned around again, pulling away from all the doorways, to stand in the center of the white space. "Zion--Zion's the matrix, too?"

"Of course it is," Smith said, an uncharacteristic gentleness in his voice. "That's what he was trying to tell you--a fraction of a percent of the population isn't happy with the regular matrix program. So we created another program that better suited their--various psychoses. Persecution complexes, multiple personality disorders, messiah complexes--" He grinned at Neo, toothily. "What do you really want? A world to try to save? An acknowledgement of how _special_ you are? A normal life?" He gestured at the black doorway. "Something... else?"

Neo looked at the doorways, turning around again, and then turned back to look at Smith. "I want out," he said, swallowing. He took the earpiece away from his ear, and held it out to Smith. "I want you people to let me out and--stop fucking _playing_ with me."

Smith held his arm out to the black doorway.

"Is it really the way out?" Neo asked. "Or just another program? The chance for me to, to, to construct the world the way I think it ought to be? Another layer of the matrix?"

"Does it matter?" Smith asked.

"Yes!" Neo protested.

Smith closed his hand abruptly, and the black doorway faded. There was a hissing sound--Neo whirled around; all the doorways were fading.

"Then stay here in your own mind," said Smith. "That's all that's real."

Smith turned and began to walk away, across the white empty plain. Neo looked down at the earpiece still in his hand, that Smith had refused. The earpiece, with the Architect's voice muttering code, and doorways to false places.

"Wait!" Neo called after him. "Where are you going?"

"To see if you've got any better scenery in here!" Smith called back, over his shoulder.

_ry in here ry in here ry_

_in here in here in_

_here here here_

Neo dropped the earpiece to the white ground and crushed it beneath his heel. "I'm coming with you!" he said, sprinting to catch up.

_ming with you ming with you ming_

_with you with you with_

_you you you_

"As you wish," Smith said companionably, trudging onward. "It _is_ your head."

~fin


End file.
